The Good and The Bad - a Quick Look at the Movies

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Second, I do not think I would use the word "glamorised" to describe what Jackson did to Boromir as much as I would use the word "humanize" him. Over the past six years I have read many posts on several sites where people say the following in different ways:

"Boromir was not a very sympathetic or likable character in the books but I gained a btter appreciation of him from the movies".

Those are my words and I am trying to summarize what many have said. Jackson succeeded in making the character more likable and someone who you really cared about once he made the sacrifice for the hobbits and died. It meant more then because the audience actually cared about him and liked him.

This is what I meant by glamorised. Perhaps you are right that humanised is a preferable word. Still, my point is that an aesthetic which requires viewers/readers to "care about and like" a character is not an aesthetic which Tolkien adheres to. Even moving Boromir's death to the end of FotR, rather than making it the start of TTT, is giving the character too much dramatic attention. The end of the Fellowship is what is significant, not Boromir's death, hence that is what concludes Book-FotR. And it is Boromir's pride and ambition that forces Frodo not only to flee, but to put on the Ring. It is the terrible power of Sauron and the Ring that should be dramatised, not the denouement of Boromir. In Tolkien's ethos.

However, this is getting away from the topic of the thread I suppose.